Representing the 2006 Palestinian Election in New Zealand Newspapers

This study investigates the news and editorial representation of the 2006 Palestinian election appearing in three New Zealand newspapers—the Otago Daily Times, the Press and the New Zealand Herald—and finds that the attention of these newspapers is consistent with some elite Western nations’ policy towards the Middle East. These newspapers identify Palestine’s (Hamas-led) government as a threat, an identification that parallels the Western policy line. In addition, Hamas’s attack on Israel was prominently reported but nothing was said about the killings perpetrated by Israelis in the context of coverage of the 2006 Palestinian election.